One of the dumbest ideas around.
The "Zeno effect" is based on the philosopher Zeno, who put
forth the paradox:
" In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to be
occurring, an object must change the position which it
occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states
that in any one instant of time, for the arrow to be moving it
must either move to where it is, or it must move to where it
is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because this is a
single instant, and it cannot move to where it is because it
is already there. In other words, in any instant of time there
is no motion occurring, because an instant is a snapshot.
Therefore, if it cannot move in a single instant it cannot
move in any instant, making any motion impossible. This
paradox is also known as the fletcher's paradox*a fletcher
being a maker of arrows. Whereas the first two paradoxes
presented divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time -
and not into segments, but into points.[7] [from wikipedia] "
Interesting but dumb in today's world. [even in the world of the
19th century!] Take a series of successive photographs very
quickly. Show them all in a series. You have what looks like
motion. But you're fooled. It's an optical illusion of film. A
series of fixed pictures put together looks like motion. Now is
reality a series of fixed pictures and no motion actually
occurs? No, I think motion does occur. I just see it as another
example of catching the baseball. You catch the baseball here,
then here, then here, then here. If you let go of the baseball
in each of the locations where you caught it, you have to let go
of the baseball in a paricular order in order to simulate what
motion looks like. But by catching the ball, you've stopped
motion. To recreate it mathematically, the order in which you
recreate the baseball moving it in a particular order, otherwise
you recreate a reality that didn't exist in the first place.
Switch the numbers around and the baseball goes backwards but
only in an illusionary recreation of what motion seems like --
just like a film. The act of observation - measuring - DOES
"ruin the moment", sort of like asking the composer in the
middle of composing a piece, "Hey, what's your next note going
to be?" Once you've interrupped the composer, you've made it
hard for him to get back on track. But give enough time, and he
can. [I know because when I am "in the zone" and playing new
stuff on the piano, any interruption at all ruins the 'NOW',
then 'FLOW'] By choosing to use particle calculations to measure
a quantum state, you're stopping its motion in mid-stream and
asking, "Okay, if you were a fixed object, where would you be
fixed?" You stike it with a photon (that's "shining a light on
it" - literally) - and the quanta freezes so to speak - you've
hit it over the head to ask it a few questions and it takes time
to recover. Now does that mean that observation by humans
changes reality? No. It just means that it's a crappy way to
measure reality by taking a wave-particle and measuring it like
a particle. Well, of COURSE it will give you a particle-style
answer. And if you measure it like a wave, of course it will not
show you its "particle ways" because that's NOT what you were
measuring. If you come up with a way to measure waves and
particular simultaneously, THEN you'll do alright and be able to
measure a quanta's location and movement. Bah, it's starting to
make sense but some of this stuff is quite irritating.
Comments
[1][IMG] [2]Simplify3*on Jul. 18 2008 [3]edit **[4]delete
" modern physics has concluded (along with Zeno) that the
classical image of space and time was fundamentally wrong, and
in fact motion would not be possible in a universe constructed
according to the classical model. We now recognize that
position and momentum are incompatible variables, in the sense
that an exact determination of either one of them leaves the
other completely undetermined. According to quantum mechanics,
the eigenvalues of spatial position are incompatible with the
eigenvalues of momentum so, just as Zeno*s arguments suggest,
it really is inconceivable for an object to have a definite
position and momentum (motion) simultaneously. "
Okay, that's cool. See, that explains the problem in quantum
physics. It's not that observation "changes" things. It just
means that we are NOT YET CAPABLE of measuring a subatomic
objects "POSITION" AND "DIRECTION" at the same time. It's
inconceivable for an object to have a definite position and
motion simultaneously... So... "Where are you?" and "Where are
you going?" are separate questions. if you could answer them at
the same time in a subatomic mathematical way, then you've
solved the riddle of quantum states, no? Kenneth Udut again.
[5][IMG] [6]Simplify3*on Jul. 18 2008 [7]edit **[8]delete Ah ha.
Gotcha wondering? Einstein figure it out, at least for big
things, how to measure time and space simultaneously.
" The theory of special relativity answers Zeno's concern over
the lack of an instantaneous difference between a moving and a
non-moving arrow by positing a fundamental re-structuring the
basic way in which space and time fit together, such that
there really is an instantaneous difference between a moving
and a non-moving object, insofar as it makes sense to speak of
"an instant" of a physical system with mutually moving
elements. Objects in relative motion have different planes of
simultaneity, with all the familiar relativistic consequences,
so not only does a moving object look different to the world,
but the world looks different to a moving object "
If only people were paying attention to Zeno, they'd have
figured Special Relativity a thousand years ago.
[9][IMG] [10]Simplify3*on Jul. 18 2008 [11]edit **[12]delete
" Some people, including Peter Lynds, have proposed
alternative solutions to Zeno's paradoxes. Lynds posits that
the paradoxes arise because people have wrongly assumed that
an object in motion has a determined relative position at any
instant in time, thus rendering the body's motion static at
that instant and enabling the impossible situation of the
paradoxes to be derived. Lynds asserts that the correct
resolution of the paradox lies in the realisation of the
absence of an instant in time underlying a body's motion, and
that regardless of how small the time interval, it is still
always moving and its position constantly changing, so can
never be determined at a time. Consequently, a body cannot be
thought of as having a determined position at a particular
instant in time while in motion, nor be fractionally dissected
as such, as is assumed in the paradoxes (and their
historically accepted solutions). "
Oh, I like that idea far better than the stinky calculus
solution. But, wow, Peter Lynds isn't any different than me. Not
a PhD, just a guy who did a little thinking. I don't think it
means that time doesn't exist though. It just means that you
either measure motion with an object in space by taking a
snapshot, which gives you a location at that instant, or you
look at overall motion by comparing what happened inbetween the
time that an object was at rest, then motion, then rest again
without chopping up the motion into little bits and pieces using
slices of time. You can watch a butterfly flutter its wings or
you can pin it to a board. If you pin it to a board, you can
pick it apart (akin to slices of time) but it can't fly anymore
because it's dead. You can shoot xrays at it to see its innards
but then that'll eventually kill it too. [ie - change its
properties]. It says something about our observatoin methods as
being very coarse and destructive, not that nature can't be
observed at all. We're like the archaeologists of the early 20th
century, using cranes and backhoes to excavate. Now they use
paintbrushes to clean away dirt more carefully so less gets
destroyed.
[13][IMG] [14]Simplify3*on Jul. 18 2008 [15]edit **[16]delete
" Actually, you cant know the exact position and velocity of
an object at the same time. In quantum physics this is
especially relevant because, for example, to see something a
photon must bounce off it. but a photon to a quantum particle
carries a lot of energy so when it hits that particle it moves
it as it is deflected. So you see the photon as it was at the
moment of collision yet the thing you are trying to measure
has already moved because of that photon. "
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